From the Death of Saul to the Death of David - Flavius Josephus

could not be more than four years after it, as here in Josephus; whose
number is directly confirmed by that copy of the Septuagint version
whence the Armenian translation was made, which gives us the small
number of four years.
2. This reflection of Josephus's, that God brought to nought the dangerous
counsel of Ahithophel, and directly infatuated wicked Absalom to reject
it, (which infatuation is what the Scripture styles the judicial hardening
the hearts and blinding the eyes of men, who, by their former voluntary
wickedness, have justly deserved to be destroyed, and are thereby
brought to destruction,) is a very just one, and in him not unfrequent.
Nor does Josephus ever puzzle himself, or perplex his readers, with
subtle hypotheses as to the manner of such judicial infatuations by God,
while the justice of them is generally so obvious. That peculiar manner
of the Divine operations, or permissions, or the means God makes use of
in such cases, is often impenetrable by us. "Secret things belong to the
Lord our God; but those things that are revealed belong to us, and to our
children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law,"
Deuteronomy 29:29. Nor have all the subtleties of the moderns, as far as
I see, given any considerable light in this, and many other the like points
of difficulty relating either to Divine or human operations.--See the
notes on Antiq. B. V ch. 1. sect. 2; and Antiq. B. IX. ch. 4. sect. 3.
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